Attempt to control water pipeline suffers legal delay

Bolingbrook and four other towns are in the midst of a legal battle to seize control of a water pipeline from the American Lake Water Co. (Geoff Ziezulewicz, Chicago Tribune)

A move by five southwest suburban towns to take control of a supply line that provides Lake Michigan water to the area has been delayed because of a legal issue.

Attorneys for the Northern Will County Water Agency have moved to voluntarily dismiss the group's case to seize the privately owned pipeline.

The move is the latest development in the lengthy, costly quest by Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Homer Glen, Lemont and Woodridge to control the line in Bedford Park that provides the lake water.

The mayors of the five towns argue that they could better run the line than the current owners, American Lake Water Co., and provide consumers with lower water bills.

Led by Bolingbrook, which is footing roughly 80 percent of the legal bills, the towns discussed the takeover for years before the agency officially formed in 2012. The initial eminent domain action was filed in January 2013.

The latest motion to voluntary dismiss the eminent domain action, filed on Feb. 27, was due to one member town, Woodridge, failing to enact the proper ordinance, according to agency and village officials.

The agency plans to file an amended complaint in the case and renew the action by the end of March, restarting the eminent domain case, according to an agency statement.

Jim Boan, an agency attorney, said the case will proceed from where it left off before the motion to voluntarily dismiss the case was filed by agency attorneys.

That means that all the work and money that has gone into the case since it was first filed more than a year ago will not be lost, he said.

Woodridge village administrator Kathleen Rush said Monday that Woodridge's failure to adopt the required ordinance was a "technical" matter and that the required ordinance would be on the Village Board meeting agenda for Thursday.

Woodridge thought it had previously taken the required steps back in August 2010, Rush said.

"The agency said they'd like us to do it again," she said. "We are going to act on it."

The agency's statement says that addressing this issue now will prevent it from being appealed and further delaying the case's day in court.

The water agency's members have spent roughly $1 million to wrest control of the Bedford Park water pipeline from its private owners.

All told, water agency documents show the towns are ready to pay up to $50 million for the pipeline.

"The Agency is committed to accomplishing the acquisition in the most timely, fair and efficient manner possible," the agency statement reads. "The Agency remains confident that it will ultimately prevail."

Eminent domain cases, where a public body takes control of private assets, are often long and pricey processes.

Agency attorneys said last year that the case would not get to a judge until late this year or early 2015.

Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar and the other town leaders have decried the high price of private water in their towns, and say that taking over the Bedford Park line will lower residents' bills.

The water agency's statement this week chides American Lake Water Company, which owns and operates the Bedford Park line, for creating "confusion regarding costs and charges."

While American Lake Water runs the pipeline, its sister company, Illinois American Water, runs the distribution systems to varying degrees in Bolingbrook and the other agency towns.

Water company officials have pointed out that the Bedford Park line service charge is a small part of a customer's bill, and that this taxpayer-funded eminent domain action by the water agency won't put a dent in resident's water bill.

Michael Smyth, a water company representative, said in a statement Monday that the company is encouraged by the water agency's dismissal.

"We hope this recent development presents an opportunity for open, transparent discussions to avoid eminent domain, which is expensive, time-consuming and divisive within a community," Smyth said.

While Claar and the other agency members have expressed exasperation at water rates during the agency's four yearly meetings, they have been short on just how their plan would reduce residential water bills.

The five mayors have all refused repeated Tribune interview requests to explain their plan.

The agency members have also refused to release studies that they claim prove they could better run the system.

The agency denied a Tribune Freedom of Information request for those studies last year. The Tribune appealed that decision in October with the state attorney general's office and is awaiting a ruling.

Bolingbrook's village board voted in November to begin exploring a takeover of the town's water distribution system, which would require the town to begin another eminent domain action in Will County courts.

With his town having the most private water taps, Claar is leading the water agency's eminent domain charge.

He has decried the high water bills in Bolingbrook and bandied about the idea of a public takeover since at least 2006, according to village documents.

While Bolingbrook water rates are higher than neighboring communities, water company officials have said that any rate increases they receive must first go through an 11-month review with the Illinois Commerce Commission.

Officials with the company also say that their rates reflect the "true cost" of operating and maintaining water systems.

While Claar, the town's mayor since 1986, now clamors to wrest control of Bolingbrook's water supply and distribution systems, he oversaw the sale of the town's water system to private hands in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The deal piped in Lake Michigan water for the first time and poured more than $10 million into Bolingbrook's coffers in the process, according to village documents.